Speedup in Public Works Proposed : Finances: Mayor wants to use $4 billion in bonds approved over six years. Move could create 3,600 jobs.

Seeking to speed construction of public facilities and create as many as 3,600 jobs over the next two years, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley is proposing a dramatic speedup in the construction and refurbishment of sewers, libraries, police stations, bridges and aging city buildings.

The money for the work will come from more than $4 billion in bonds approved by voters over the last six years, much of which has remained unspent because of bureaucratic delays, Bradley said Thursday.

Under a program that the mayor’s office is expected to propose to the City Council within the next two weeks, many of the projects would be speeded up--in part by hiring as many as 50 city employees to approve plans, supervise bidding and oversee construction.

“It’s a matter of priming the pump, spending the money for staff that will make the whole acceleration viable,” Bradley said in an interview. “It’s a good investment.”

Two influential City Council members agreed that voter-approved work has languished for too long. But they said they will view with skepticism any request to hire more city workers, which could cost up to $2.5 million, to accelerate the projects.

“We should crack the whip to get this job done with the existing city work force,” said Councilman Joel Wachs, who is running for mayor.

The amount of money spent on bureaucrats, consultants and other white-collar workers should be kept to a minimum to preserve most of the funds for construction, said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who, like Wachs, is a member of the council’s Budget and Finance Committee.

The construction bond money should not be viewed as a way to save jobs of bureaucrats who might be laid off because of a shortfall in the city’s general fund, Yaroslavsky said.

“This whole matter of not spending the bond money has been a travesty,” Yaroslavsky said. “People voted for it and it hasn’t been done. . . . But this hasn’t been stalled because of a lack of staffing. It’s a lack of administration and leadership.”

Bradley’s program, still in the planning stages, would increase the amount of money spent on the public works projects over the next two years by $105 million.

About $40 million of that money would go to improve the city’s decaying sewer system and to upgrade sewage plants to comply with legal settlements that require the cleanup of effluent dumped into Santa Monica Bay. Voters approved bonds to complete that work in 1987, 1988 and last year.

Bond measures were also approved in 1989 and 1990 to retrofit bridges and city buildings to make them safe in earthquakes, to build libraries and refurbish old ones and to build a Police Academy and nearly a dozen police stations.

By January, city officials said the acceleration will lead to retrofitting of 110 bridges, instead of the planned 35; work on 13 libraries, instead of seven; construction of eight police facilities, instead of four, and seismic improvements on 14 city buildings, instead of two.

The program was initiated more than a year ago when City Controller Rick Tuttle sent a letter to Bradley and other city officials.

“There are two winners in this: The people of the city who will get things like the bridges repaired more readily,” Tuttle said. “The other winners are those individuals who are now out of work . . . and who will put together these major construction projects.”

Before the acceleration, the public works projects would have employed about 15,900 workers over the next two years--including architects, engineers, construction workers and the suppliers of equipment and construction materials, said City Engineer Robert S. Horii.

Another 3,600 jobs will be created, Horii said.

The city plan parallels proposals by President Clinton and state Treasurer Kathleen Brown, who have suggested that public works projects can help jolt the economy out of the doldrums.

Bradley has taken up the idea by calling together many of the city’s department heads and asking them to make construction work a top priority.

Asked why the building initiative could not have come earlier, Bradley said: “A sense of urgency has been created by the economic downturn and the emergency in the community. This uses money that is already there.”

Bradley’s involvement and calling together of department heads has had an effect, said Felicia Marcus, president of the public works board. “Now everyone has been sensitized that there is a sense of urgency,” Marcus said.

If the city does not spend the money promptly, it will find that inflation eats away at the bond proceeds, reducing the number of projects that can be completed, Yaroslavsky said.

“We could wake up one day with the authority to build a bunch of things, only to find we can’t afford to do it,” he said.